


my return to you is a familiar thing

by scriptmanip



Series: Resting on Your Laurels [8]
Category: Skins (UK)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 18:37:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriptmanip/pseuds/scriptmanip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily was always just Emily, until one day she wasn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my return to you is a familiar thing

_And so you see I have come to doubt_  
_All that I once held as true_  
_I stand alone without beliefs_  
_The only truth I know is you._

* * *

_  
_

“I’ve got a favour to ask of you.”

Without pause, Effy responds, “I won’t have phone sex with you.”

You stop mid-step on your way into the kitchen, eyeing the fridge like it’s suddenly an appliance you don’t recognise. “Um, yeah. Not what I was going to ask, Eff.”

“Actually, I suppose I would if you asked nicely.”

“Effy—“

“But, I don’t think I’d be able to pull off panting your name in husky breaths with much believability. And, you know,  I prefer not to half-arse a fuck.”

“ _Jesus_ – what the fuck are you on about?” You open the cupboard, staring at its contents but forgetting what you needed, then shut it forcefully a second later. “Why would you even suggest—“

“Basement 45. The night after exams when Cook nearly got arrested for dealing powder.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

 “I had an unfortunately-timed full bladder while you and Emily were in the toilets, presumably, _celebrating_ the end of term?”

“Oh. Christ.”

“Cubicles have terribly thin walls, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah _alright_. Got it. I told you – that’s _not_ why I fucking phoned.”

Effy just laughs, low and light. “Sounds like you could use a shag anyway. Moody bitch.”

You’re less often impressed by Effy’s perceptive nature after so many years, particularly when it’s surrounding a sex life you currently don’t have.

“So,” she continues, as if she’s not just struck a terribly raw nerve, “if you didn’t ring to hear me wank off, then why did you?”

Sexual frustration has often lead to some of your most epic rows, but it’s not Effy’s fault you’ve gone without for seven months, so you take a deep breath. Better to not engage, you think, when a lack of sex has already rendered you a bit tetchy.

“I’m thinking of coming back. To London.”

“Well, that should get you laid,” Effy laughs. “Have you told Emily then?”

You take a deep breath, remembering the late night chat that was meant to simplify things and instead has had your head spinning for two, full days. “Yeah.”

“So then you’re not _thinking_ of doing anything.”

“What do you mean?”

The kettle starts its low, hollow whistle just as you’ve come back into the sitting room, and you remember what it was you wanted from the cupboard. When you return to the kitchen, the assortment of teas Emily had sent for Christmas are spread beside the stove. You select a bag, tapping it against the countertop as Effy lights up a fag.

“You wouldn’t have told Emily a word unless you’ve already good and well solidified a plan, Naomi.”

“Well, not exactly. I’ve still got some things to sort out while I’m here – work and stuff.”

You reach for a mug, crooking your finger around the handle so it dangles for a moment above the counter. Emily took her tea in it the morning she left Brooklyn, and you’ve not used it since. You feel a smile creep across your lips at the thought of Emily, and shared mornings, and cups of tea.

You finish your thought with a smile still on your lips. “But, soon. I think.”

The mug meets the counter with a soft clink, and you trace a finger around it’s rim while steaming billows rise from the kettle beside it.

“About fucking time,” Effy says, and your smile brightens at her subdued excitement, which has always sounded more like indifference. “And what, you’d like me to organise your ‘welcome home’ party?”

“Sort of hoping you’d give me a home to come back to, actually. Temporarily, at least. I’ve been looking online a bit, but it’s nearly impossible to search for flats when I’m not even in the fucking country.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not, actually. Why – is there something wrong with me crashing on your sofa for a bit?”

“Any particular reason you’ll not be shacking up with Emily?”

“No. I’m not doing that again,” you tell her. And though Effy can’t see it, you hope it reflects in your tone, the way you’re shaking your head definitively.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Naomi?” Effy sounds exhausted suddenly, even though you’re the one up before sunrise on a Saturday.

“I mean I’m not picking up my life again and moving it straight into Emily’s bedroom – just, no.”

“Jesus Christ – how long are you going to punish yourself for something you did at nineteen? Fucking hell, Naomi.” She then spaces each word with generous pause between, emphasising like she’s trying to help you understand a foreign language. “Let. It. Go.”

“I’m not fucking punishing anyone, alright?” you sigh, turning to lean the small of your back against the kitchen counter. “I’m just – I’m not ready for _everything_ all at once.”

Effy won’t make you expound. And she’ll not expect you to explicitly place blame, especially not on someone so small. Someone so helpless. She won’t force you to say his name. The one person who’s so _not_ at fault for your insecurities. The innocent party, as it were, in this entirely complex arrangement. And it’s always such a relief when Effy lets you tell her things without forcing you to say them out loud.

“So can I stay with you or not?”

“Of course you can, you stupid twat.”

Your smile returns. “Cheers, Eff.”

Effy sighs, as if considering a new colour for her nails, and then admonishes, “ _’Not ready’_ to move in with your girlfriend. Some lesbian you turned out to be.”  

You laugh at her feigned disappointment, ending the call shortly after. But an hour or so later, her words still echo in your head. You’ve not thought of Emily that way – as your _girlfriend_ – as Effy so cavalierly suggested. Not in a very long time, anyway. It prompts another thought, one that almost makes you laugh again. Which is that this is how things seem to work for the two of you – the way you’ve always made these kind of massive life decisions without first discussing the implications. You’ve not equated your return to London with making Emily your girlfriend, just as you’d never once considered her to be anything of the sort the first time either.

Emily was always just Emily, until one day she wasn’t.

**

Until one afternoon, a few days into the summer holiday, after that first year of sixth form that changed everything. Emily was sat at the foot of your bed in the midst of a heated conversation with Katie, who’s squawking could be heard from where you lay at the other end. Humidity hung in the air of your bedroom. And the light breeze coming in through the open window didn’t lessen it at all, only seemed to push it about, evident by how you could still feel it draped on your skin.

Still, you kept a sheet pulled up to your armpits while listening to Emily endure an earful from her sister. A creeping insecurity still lingered, back then, at the idea of lying starkers in front of Emily when not in the throes of passion.

There had been some confusion, apparently, on who was meant to cover for whom. And Katie had been immediately chained to the house upon stumbling home that morning, as a result. Forced to take the full brunt of Jenna’s wrath and insisting that Emily should be home too, to suffer alongside her. The solidarity of siblings you’d never understand.

But Emily had argued that she didn’t _want_ to leave, that she shouldn’t have to come running just because Katie’d been twatted at a house party and couldn’t remember their arrangement. And you’d felt a bit proud of her – felt a bit relieved, too, that her declarations at the Love Ball hadn’t been some fluke of adrenaline – that she was finally telling Katie to back the fuck off, when warranted [which, in your opinion, was _always_ ].

But then, Emily had raised her voice in a tone of sheer frustration, reserved for Katie alone, and said, “No, Katie, she’s not! She’s my fucking _girlfriend_ , for fuck’s sake!”

And you’d maybe wanted to be angry, pre-emptively, about whatever Katie had suggested about you. Except you couldn’t actually focus on anything beyond the word: _girlfriend_.

It was completely jarring, the indefinite concept of it shouted in the confines of your room. Because you’d been privy to some aspects of what having a girlfriend probably meant – the kissing and the shagging and the having-Emily-all-to-yourself for days at a time – and those bits had been fucking brilliant. But, it was everything else you didn’t know, all the expectations that being someone’s _girlfriend_ mysteriously implied.

You’d been momentarily poised to correct her, ready to argue against labelling of any kind because, politically speaking, you didn’t subscribe to that sort of thing. People weren’t meant to live in boxes and all that. But then Emily had looked at you, over her shoulder, and rolled her eyes from beneath that crooked fringe, smiling in this silly, little way of hers, as if she hadn’t just been yelling at all. And your whole demeanour relaxed instantly, overcome with affection for the girl who was perched on your bed, in your tee shirt, defending your honour.

You’d done everything so utterly backwards to begin with. Realised you loved her. Shared kisses – once, twice, a smattering of instances. Slept with her. Run away. Fallen apart. Admitted your feelings. Discovered she loved you back.

And wasn’t that the biggest word of all? Shouldn’t a proclamation of _love_ trump every other syllable, ever other iteration of what you were to each other? Shouldn’t anything else seem insignificant in light of that? And still, the word _‘girlfriend’_ felt odd as it rolled around your head.

Even more odd had been hearing it in your own voice.

Your mum, famously imperceptive to a wide variety of teenage activity clocked by most parents, always had a sixth sense when it came to you and Emily. And it wasn’t more than a week into that first summer holiday – the blissful one where your discovery of each other, in every sense of the word, was impenetrable to absolutely everything and everyone – that your mum confronted you on the _‘small redhead’_ who’d been _‘living in your pocket.’_

She’d thrown out a word like _dalliance_ , while pouring your orange juice and making her eyes do that twinkling intuition thing you found generally infuriating. And you didn’t like its implications. The way she’d cruelly minimised the idea of you and Emily, which to you felt _so massive_ , no matter how innocent her intentions.

You could have fallen back on the time-honoured _‘could you please mind your own fucking business’_ retort you’d perfected. But, in that moment, in some surge of courage, or defiance, or perhaps a newfound protective nature over Emily, you’d informed your mum that Emily was in no way some casual, fucking tryst.

“Look, I’ve got a girlfriend now, alright? Alert the fucking press if you feel so inclined, but you can cease from commenting on the frequency of her visits to our house, okay?”

Your cheeks still flushed as you said it, and your palms grew clammy, curled into tight fists. But you didn’t break eye contact, even withstanding the terribly pleased look your mum had given you as she nodded quietly and joined you at the table without another word.

**

The contents of your flat are dwindling into half-packed boxes and piles to free-cycle or throw away.  You’ve taken a framed photo from a shelf of you at that age, when Emily had first become your girlfriend – a rare shot of you with your mum – and fold it into newspaper. And you smile at the memory of yourself at seventeen, all the angst and the turmoil and the theatrics. All the shit your poor mum had been forced to endure, that some lovely photograph could never hope to capture, especially since Gina’s smile so rarely faltered.

Of course she’s long since relocated from Bristol, returning to the type of nomadic existence that’s always suited her. It all lingers, though, even still – every inch of that yellow cottage infused in your memories, in your bones. All its scents and textures, its familiar creaks and imperfections. It’d have been a more comforting refuge during those long weeks after Manchester. You’ve always thought so. Instead you’d returned to the smaller flat that you’d mostly shared with Emily during your final year of college – the space that practically felt like she still lived in the walls and carpets. It would always feel like hers. Like yours. You had no choice, really. No place else to go once you’d fled Manchester without a trace.

But, it felt like the worst place to harbour yourself away.

**

Your mum stays put for the first few weeks, offering support in her own subtle ways.

A tray of tea and biscuits left outside your bedroom door.

A bottle of wine in the fridge with a note tied around its neck that reads: _‘Chin up.’_

Her hand applying gentle pressure to your shoulder caps as she passes you in the hallways, or as she leaves you to sit quietly at the kitchen table.

But then she’s gone – because she can’t stay still for long, and you’re starting to think she’s onto something – and things disintegrate rapidly into a blur of liquor bottles, sleepless nights, and loads of cigarettes.

You’ve got about four days to pull your shit together before she gets back to find the place a fucking tip, like you’ve hosted some string of raging house parties. Except the guest list is down to one, since you can’t really stand the idea of being around others, and no one stayed behind in Bristol anyway. It’s well lonely, and some days you can’t even make it down the stairs into the garden to smoke your fags. Opting instead to cram them into the tray beside your bed, already full with crumpled filters, old ash, and holding a stench that makes you choke back an urge to toss.

On your way into town for more fags and a carton of juice [so that your mum doesn’t think you’ve been pulling vodka straight from the bottle without mixers, which seemed appropriate at age sixteen but sort of lowbrow at twenty], you pass through a park and make eye contact with an unexpectedly familiar face from across the green.

JJ sort of balks when he sees you, the way he always has since slipping it to Emily and maybe even before then. And you’ve got no idea why seeing him gives you the urge to duck behind tree trunks or run in the opposite direction because you’ve never once considered JJ to be at all intimidating. Except that he’s always blathering on about shit he shouldn’t, or bringing up topics that any marginally self-aware person would know to shut the fuck up about. What’s worse, you then realise, is that JJ doesn’t even know _not_ to bring up Emily, since no one other than Katie has any idea what’s happened, and so of course he fucking will. And you’ll have to fumble through some shit explanation that will make things even more awkward than they would be under normal circumstances.

But then, this _is_ normal now.

Not having some stunted exchange with a college acquaintance in the middle of a bloody park, necessarily. But, being without Emily and confronting the reality of that in everyday conversations. It’s not seeing JJ that scares you then, but the inevitability of recognising that bleak, new reality.

“Hello, Naomi. Hi – I didn’t know you’d come home.”

“Hey, yeah.” You stop a foot or so in front of each other and nod once. “Well, here I am.”

“Right, so you are. Everyone’s gone though, aren’t they? Cook and Freddie have gone. Not together, of course, but still, I don’t see them except around Christmas. And Effy’s vanished again, but she’s always been that way, I think, hasn’t she? Not me though. Mum still needs me close by because it allows her to sleep better at night and, well, it doesn’t seem like the hardest thing to do for her. Staying in Bristol, I mean.”

You nod again. “Right.”

You can’t really think of anything more substantial to say because the idea of JJ being so selfless and sweet towards his mum kind of catches you off-guard.

Even though it _shouldn’t_ because it’s completely within his character to be so kind to the people he loves. Instead you just keep bobbing your head, trying to think of the best way to excuse yourself from this awkward encounter without sounding like the kind of abrasive twat JJ’s probably always assumed you were.

Before your able, though, JJ, being horribly predictable, just blurts out, “You’re not with Emily then?”

Something must register across your face – whether it furrows in pain or drains completely of colour, you can’t be sure – because JJ’s eyes go wide and he starts twitching like he’s seconds away from doing that _locked-on_ business you thought he’d have outgrown.

“I just mean – well, I remember you were on your way to London, and she, well, Emily said she’d taken a spot in Manchester. And, it’s a bit odd, really, imagining you without her – or her without you, really – or, I didn’t mean _without_. But, separated, rather, as a technicality.” JJ gulps, keeps at it like a fucking freight train. “It’s just that, the distance from London to Manchester is nearly 270 kilometres, and, well, do you find it strange then? Being apart?”

It takes a concerted effort not to vomit on the pavement between you. And a second type of restraint not to give in to the stinging at the corners of your eyes. JJ just watches you, nervous and wide-eyed, while you try to force-start your lungs to expand and contract.

After swallowing back what feels like razors against the back of your throat, you look off to a gathering of trees in the distance, and tell him, “It’s well strange, JJ.”

There’s not much else to be said, and only after you’ve said your awkward goodbyes do you realise what a tit you’ve been, not asking anything about JJ’s life, or his mum, or his collection of hamsters or something. You don’t think he’s noticed, though, since you can’t remember anyone taking a real interest in him for all those years. Other than Emily, you think, correcting the memory. And then feel even worse at the thought. Because Emily, for all her faults, will always seem like the better person when considering your own deficiencies.  

You’d meant to buy juice but end up with juice _and_ whiskey.

And, though you’ve made a concerted effort as of late to acquire a matured palette, you can’t even stand the taste of the whiskey when it’s not served cold and cut with water or ginger beer. So every few sips you have to pause to keep from gagging and suck heavily on your cigarette before going back to the bottle. You finish almost half while sat in the park and then walk for nearly thirty minutes before realising you’ve not gone in the direction of your house.

Everything is starting to feel hazy, and not in a pleasant way, but in that getting drunk too quickly on an empty stomach in the middle of the day leaves you feeling uneasy and slightly ill. You eventually collapse on a low, stone wall that lines the front gardens of a house, which is sat on the corner of a street you know a bit too well.

You’ve done well avoiding this entire area of Bristol for three, solid weeks, but leave it to your drunken limbs and wandering mind to land you here against your will. As angry as you are to have found yourself here, you can’t really be arsed to move in your current condition and decide to at least enjoy a fag while you’re resting. Operating a lighter proves more difficult though when the floor beneath your feet seems to tilt unexpectedly, and your hand juts out against the stone to stay upright. You manage to keep from falling over [barely], but the cigarette breaks in the process, and you’re throwing it angrily at your feet when a car slows at the corner.

If you’d considered a run-in with JJ to be the oddest occurrence imaginable, it seems the universe is out to prove you horribly wrong.  

There’s this moment where you know she’s seriously conflicted – you can see it in her dark, narrowed eyes – about looking the other way and driving on as if you’d not locked eyes. You feel a bit stuck where you are as well, at the moment not trusting the steady pounding in your chest any more than the stability of your knees and ankles. And so you put up a hand, attempting to wave while steadying your speech so as not to slur your greeting.

“Afternoon, Jenna.”

Her face changes then – something you can’t easily read thanks to all the fucking whiskey – and you think she’s about to speak through her open window.

You’ve never in your life felt the need to explain yourself to Jenna Fitch, and yet, you sense _again_ the way your body’s about to betray you. “I’m just taking a walk, you know – enjoying my fucking day, alright?”

She frowns then, and you think it’s probably because you’ve lost the ability to annunciate properly. So you plough on with a bit more effort. “I didn’t come here to stalk your bloody minivan or anything, if that’s what you think.”

Jenna closes her mouth again, where it had been slightly agape, like she’s physically keeping whatever words that had formed from falling out. _Just like Emily_ , you think. Watching her turns some sick twisting in your stomach because in four whole years, you’ve not _ever_ associated any habits of Emily’s to a thing she could share with her fucking _mother_. Jenna checks her mirrors for any approaching cars before pulling the automobile up to the kerb and turning it off.

“Shitting hell,” you mumble, glancing down to your trainers [untied] and your top [missing buttons] and your very obvious bottle of liquor on the wall beside you [half-empty].

“Naomi.” Your head whips around to find her stood much closer, but it’s the _way_ she says your name – soft and cautious and completely unfamiliar – that stops your breathing. “What’ve you done to your hand?”

You turn your wrist so its palm-side up, resting on your thigh, and look down to where the skin is broken, and tiny gaps in your hand are filled with bits of crumbled mortar.

You blink once. “Shit.”

The small gaps are pooled with blood that have made dotted patterns on your blue leggings. Like mapping constellations.  

“You should—“ Jenna takes a deep breath, midsentence, like she’s actively struggling with the concept of mothering someone she’s never really liked “—would you let me clean that up?”

Your eyes cut quickly to her before again looking away. “What? No – I mean, no thanks,” you say, flipping your hand back down so that your leggings – ruined now anyway – can soak up whatever blood still surfaces. “I can’t even feel it.”

She sits down then, timid almost in the way she clasps her hands together on her knees, and eyes the bottle on the wall between you. “Yes, well, you will. Better to have dealt with salves and bandages before then, don’t you think?”

You don’t say anything just look back to your hands, trying desperately to focus on the pair of them without seeing doubles, and finally close your eyes when things start to spin.

“No, I’m fine.” You swallow roughly at the soured taste of whiskey on your tongue and then repeat, “I’m fine.”

“Why don’t we just – well, I’ve got plasters at the house—“

“ _No_.” You look over at her, square in the eye this time, trying for defiance. What you’re left with is a shaky chin and watery eyes, so you look back to the pavement between your feet before saying, “I can’t go there.”

Jenna’s quiet _‘Oh’_ is so pitying, you want to yell for her to stop. For her to fuck off and leave you be. You want to tell her she’s only making it worse. It feels so much worse, this act of feigned kindness she’s forcing you both to endure.

But she clears her throat then, sounding a bit more like the woman you’ve avoided for years on end. “I’ll just – well, I’ll just give you a lift then.”

When you look up to her, she’s managed a small smile that’s more sincere than she’s ever offered you.

“You really don’t have to—“

“Up you go then.” She stands while reaching for your elbow. “You’re certainly in no state to make it there on your own.”

Drunk or not, as you allow yourself to be led towards the minivan, you feel the subtle tremor of her grip against your arm.

Only after Jenna has pulled up to the kerb outside your mum’s flat – after somehow following your haphazard co-piloting – do you remember the state of it. But the amount of liquor you’ve drank is now hitting you in these heavy waves, and you’re having difficulty with basic motor functions as much as the English language.

“Can we ring your mum?” Jenna finally asks, once she’s deposited you on the front steps, fretting and likely losing patience as you repeatedly refuse to hand over your house key.

“She’s Athens,” you slur, and then try again with a shake of your head. “She’s gone to Athens,” you say, fighting to keep your head upright.

“I see.” Jenna’s hovering somewhere above you, wringing her hands. “Naomi, please. It could get infected if we don’t—“

“Can’t go in there, _can’t_. It’s shit – it’s all fucking shit.” Your head tips back against the door at your back and your eyes close. “You can’t fucking go in there – it’s like a bomb. She’d kill me if you saw it like that. She’d fucking _kill_ me.”

Jenna says something quietly about keeping schtum, that your mum would be grateful she’d not left you to bleed on the stoop. And you think she must be squatted down on her haunches beside you, because her voice sounds so much closer. She then digs through your bag until she retrieves a key, and then stands triumphantly.

As she helps you to your feet and leads you inside the flat, you briefly try to recall if you’d mentioned your mum at all.

The absolute wreckage of the place is only magnified by the vague knowledge that Jenna Fitch is experiencing it alongside you. Meanwhile, across town, children with poor immune systems could be eating off her floors because the woman keeps them so fucking spotless. But she says nothing of it, clearing a spot on the sofa for you to lie down.

And then she’s fretting again, stood beside the sofa. And you wish she’d just leave you alone to bleed in peace already.

“Sorry, the loo is just …”

“Top of the stairs,” you tell her, your head resting on one of your mum’s scratchy pillows and your eyes feeling far too heavy to keep open.  

Jenna returns moments later with enough supplies for casualties of war, but when you try to sit up she nearly shushes you back down, placing a hand gently to your upper arm.

And if that doesn’t sober you instantly, what she says next certainly does.

“You’ve got to take better care of yourself, Naomi. You might not believe it, but – well, she’d not want this for you.”

Jenna is dabbing your hand with disinfectant, keeping her eyes locked on the task while she speaks. You wonder if she can actually hear your thumping heartbeat, the way it echoes in your ears. A clear head is fleeting, you know, based on the sheer consumption of whiskey. But there’s a sudden flare of anger you can feel like an actual heat source, and so you cling to it.

“I don’t _care_ what she wants,” you say through gritted teeth.

You consider pulling your hand away from her. But Jenna’s grip is rather strong. Just as it always has been.

You’re not sure how she’s managed it – to look so stern while still offering that motherly warmth you’ve never before seen – but when she meets your eye, it’s all there. “Yes, of course you do, Naomi.”

The tears are silent at first, still laced with anger and forming in pockets at the corners of your eyes as you bite back any sobs that might draw attention. And Jenna’s gone back to tending to your hand, taking time to wrap the wound with precision while averting your eyes now bleary with tears.

She’s manicured and coiffed and dressed in the clean, understated fashion you’ve always associated with Jenna Fitch. She’s this stark pillar of order amidst all the chaos of your recently degenerative lifestyle. Empty cans of cider litter the floor at her feet and half-finished cartons of smelly take-away clutter every surface. It reeks of spliff, you know it does, but if that weren’t enough indication, she’d also moved rolling papers and an ashtray off the coffee table in order to perch lightly on its edge. It’s a fucking disgraceful nightmare, and you wish it would fucking end already.

“She doesn’t—“ you start, pausing to swallow, to close your eyes and breath. And then try a bit more forcefully, “You can’t tell her I’m here.”

Jenna purses her lips, continues to avoid catching your eye, and then ignores your demand entirely.

“Emily comes around to things in her own time, and she won’t be told otherwise.” She’s finished with the wound now, gently placing your hand back onto the sofa so you can curl it against your chest. She then chances a smile, though it’s a sad one, as she stares into her own lap. “Learned that the hard way, didn’t I?”

Your brow furrows as you watch her. You think about the summer when you stole Emily away – when she let herself be taken like a willing hostage. It’d felt like victory, every morning you woke and she was still there. Every time you reached for her and found her fingers reaching back for yours. Every time you turned up at the street corner, feeling your stomach tense with the anticipation of seeing her after a weekend, a day, an hour apart.

Being with Emily had, at first, felt like winning a gruesome battle, and you’d done it all without remorse. Without considering any injury to the opposition. And even now, you don’t want to share a commonality with the woman perched on your coffee table. You don’t want to think of her as an ally when she’s always done so well at playing the enemy.

But you can’t help feeling the draw between you now. You’re no longer sharing Emily, but the harrowing emptiness of losing her.

“I don’t know how—“ the emotion breaks you then, though you’d fought against it, and you cover your face, shielding it with your hand. It smells of sterilisation from your bandages. “I don’t know how to let her go and still be okay.”

Jenna breathes out. And you can’t look at her because it’s bad enough just knowing she’s there without confirming it with your eyes. If you’re going to fall apart in the presence of someone you can’t really trust, then better to at least hide your face away. But you know she’s sat there, on the repulsive surface of the coffee table, with her hands clasped together on her knees.

“You will though. You’ll figure it all out.”

Your hand drops a bit so you can look over at her, sat just as you’d imagined. “Since when did you start thinking that I’m fucking capable of anything?”

Jenna drops her eyes to her hands as her lips twitch. “Because I learnt how,” her eyes flick back to yours before she adds firmly, “and you’re a stronger person for Emily than I’ll ever be.”

The room suddenly feels too quiet, for all the words filling it up. And your head has started to throb harshly. You cover your eyes again, after inelegantly wiping your nose with the back of your hand. After a few horrible attempts at pulling yourself together, you finally turn fully into the back of the sofa and wait for it to all be over.

“I can’t, I can’t—“ it falls out of your mouth sloppily, like a clumsy chant. “Tell her I’m sorry because I just can’t, I can’t—“

You feel her hand once more, lightly placed again on your upper arm, just before Jenna says quietly, “Right, so then I’ll just return these to the cabinet and be on my way.”

It’s not until she’s left the room, and maybe even the flat, that you manage a soft ‘ _thank you_ ’ that she’ll never hear.

When you wake up, you’re entirely out-of-sorts because it’s quite dark in the room, your confusion only worsened by the searing pain behind your eyes and a dull throb in your right hand. Cautiously, so as not to amplify the pain in your skull, you start to move, rolling over onto your back. There’s a shaft of light coming in from the kitchen that falls along an armchair and half of the coffee table. It’s the first thing you notice – the table – but then your head is spinning too quickly to focus on any, one thing.

Blankets are folded on the backs of chairs. Every surface has been cleared of rubbish, and the table in front of you wiped clean. Its typical contents – TV remote, ratty paperbacks on gardening, doilies your mum uses for fucking coasters – are _organised_. Your mouth, gone mostly dry from extreme dehydration, now feels more like the Sahara as it all sinks in.

You move into the kitchen, slowly staggering on shaky, residually-drunken legs, and it’s no better in there because the bright lighting only exaggerates the cleanliness. Everything’s spotless – the dishes not just cleared and washed, but gone _completely_ , tucked into the cupboards. You fetch a glass of water, sit at the table that now has a faint scent of vinegar and lemon, and stare blankly at your bandaged hand.

**

You’ve been packing for what feels like eleven straight hours, but where boxes are still everywhere – half-filled and unlabelled – it all seems relatively insurmountable. The chime on your phone goes from where it’s charging in the kitchen, and when you get to it a picture text from Emily is waiting for you.

 _We miss you_ , it says. _Pack faster._

Emily’s bottom lip is protruding pitifully – _adorably_ , if you’re being honest – but Lewis can’t help smiling, his tiny fingers reaching out towards the camera’s lens. You lean against the counter’s edge with your hip and smile down at the pair of them, running your finger along the slope of Emily’s nose and imagining how her eyes would close at the touch. You look around then with a heavy sigh, considering everything that’s surrounding you, left unfinished. And it’s maybe forty, forty-five seconds before you think, _Right, fuck it_.

It takes less time to look up the number than it takes to get an actual human on the line, but once you’ve got Sheila or Sherry, or whoever she is assisting you, it’s all quite straightforward. She asks what it is she can help you with this evening.

You take one more look around before falling back into the cushions of your sofa, and tell her, “I’ve booked a flight to London that’s scheduled in two weeks. I’d like to change that reservation.”

Sheila says, “Great!”

And you can’t believe that some people are actually paid to have this level of invested response when helping perfect strangers. She then asks when you’re hoping to travel.

So you say, “How soon can you get me there?” 

**

The cab ride from Heathrow to Emily’s flat isn’t long enough for you to get things properly sorted. Your head’s a basic shitstorm of racing thoughts and possible outcomes of this ill-conceived plan. And the term _plan_ should be applied loosely as it’s hardly that. A whim, perhaps, would more accurately describe how it is you’ve landed yourself in this taxi. Or better still, how you first ended up on a redeye from New York to London. It’s pretty intense, the nervous pulsing beneath your skin – in your sweaty palms and in each, rapid tapping of your foot against the floor board.

It’s worse than that time you interviewed with senior designers at The Whitney, only to realise partway through you’d popped a button on your top, leaving a gaping hole between your breasts. [A wonder you never heard back on that position, come to think of it.]

It’s worse than being a lousy, first-year intern, presenting a proposal for design schemes in a room of artists with far more experience and very little interest.

It’s worse than every, single time you’ve sat at Jenna Fitch’s dining table, feigning confidence while, in reality, shitting yourself that she’d finally decided to go ahead and poison your aubergine flan.

You’ve not really slept either, which you know is serving to exacerbate the anxiety. But an ambien and two vodkas on the plane couldn’t put you under for more than an hour. Nothing, it seems, can lessen the thrill of coming back. Of coming back _to her_.

You hop out of the cab a full three blocks from Emily’s, deciding to walk the rest of the way, in an attempt to work out a bit of your nerves with fresh air in your lungs. You sling your bag – only a small rucksack – over a shoulder and start off down the street.

Several paces from Emily’s, you realise [not for the first time, but with some additional clarity] you’ve not thought out any of this grand plan _at all_. Essentially, you’ve dropped out of the sky into jolly, old England, like some kind of fucking Bond spy. With Emily, and Effy for that matter, none the wiser. And any panic that may have subsided from the morning air and your brisk pace, surges back in that instant.

It all seemed to make perfect sense back in your own flat, in your own city; and the excitement you felt when ringing a taxi service and shovelling a few, spare belongings into your bag couldn’t be contained.

Turning up to Emily’s unannounced to lavish her with kisses and heartfelt proclamations – how terribly romantic, you’d thought. After all, not that long ago, Emily had done, and look how well _that_ turned out. Your skin flushes with a quick heat at the memory of it – Emily straddling you on the sofa, or pushing you against the kitchen sink, or waking you with soft touches.

You’ve slowed your stride and must look like a grinning idiot because a woman passes by on the pavement, giving you a look of serious concern. It’s four doors to Emily’s flat, and you can already see it – the red one with its paint chipping – from where you’ve now come to a complete standstill.

All your excitement, however, apparently left you somewhere over the Atlantic because the only thing you now sense is a sickly anxiety. The thing is, Emily could very well not even be there. She could be teaching, if only you’d managed to memorise her sodding class schedule. Or she could be writing, tucked away in some quiet coffee shop or the university’s library. Or, she’s maybe gone to that musty, old bookshop to visit the elderly man who adores her – a favourite outing of hers she’d written about in a letter you received while working in Savannah.

Not to mention the weather, being uncharacteristically lovely, might also mean she’s taken Lewis to the park – the one Emily likes, not because it’s particularly sanitary or conveniently located, but because it reminds her of a playground near her home in Bristol. The one where you’d told her you loved her that one time – stoned on spliff and cheap wine – while laid in the grass, looking up for stars hidden away behind the clouds. And she’d sighed in response and taken your hand, like even though it wasn’t the first time she’d heard you say it, it would always _feel_ like the first time.    

But the fact remains, you think, taking a few steps until you’re in front of the red door, that Emily’s not likely sat around, drumming her fingers, and waiting for you to turn up at ten in the morning on a random Tuesday. Not when, in another two weeks, she’s meant to be meeting you at the airport for your _scheduled_ arrival.

But of course you couldn’t wait. You couldn’t resist the idea of arriving early, turning up at her flat without warning, and getting to experience that look on her face.

It’s been years, of course, since an opportunity like this has presented itself. Since you’ve felt this compelled to tell every other facet of your life to get fucked for the sake of Emily. For the sake of being _with_ Emily. That absolute and unwavering need to see her face-to-face.

The first time will always appear largest, in recollection. All that angst and despondence of which only teenagers are capable – crying through catflaps and making declarations at college balls. It wasn’t really courage that landed you in Jenna’s kitchen that morning, asking after Emily. It was sheer desperation.

You’d then taken on university with an arrogant naivety, convinced that all that business about separation and longing had been grossly exaggerated by the likes of Keats or the bloody Brownings. In reality, it’d been so much worse than even the poets would have you believe. Truthfully, _nothing_ seems bigger than the events that led you to Manchester. It didn’t help that the distance between you and Emily was nearly manageable, no more than a boring train ride. But it was like a greater torture, to function without her, when Emily was so close.

You’ve often wondered if you could have survived it, avoided the worst of it, if only the distance were greater.

If you’d taken a gap year to study fucking sea turtles or sell beaded jewellery in Anguilla while Emily took a liberal arts education in someplace like San Francisco or Berkeley. Forcing you both, by geography alone, to learn a life apart.

But then, it’s useless to go back and recount how things might have gone under different circumstances. And knowing what you now know, the distance is hardly relevant. Something tells you you’d have found your way back to her – by swimming oceans or as a boxcar stowaway – just the same.

Of course, as things happened, you’d crumbled under the weight of it all, left early one morning, on a day when you _should_ have been studying methodologies and conceptual problems of the early Roman empire, and turned up on an unfamiliar campus in search of Emily. You remember considering briefly, smoking your fourth cigarette on the steps of what you _hoped_ was the English building, that Emily would send you away – that she’d frogmarch you back to the train station and demand your return to London.

She’d be annoyingly level-headed, you’d thought, insisting you both _‘stick to the plan’_ of separate universities and separate cities in order to become _‘better people’_ for each other. Because, although you were loath to admit it, and although she fought against it in her own way, there was something of a sound, rational, Fitch-bred mentality lingering in Emily’s psyche. Something she couldn’t entirely shirk, despite her ‘ _rebelliously’_ having a girlfriend, or striking out on her own in a new city, or creating her own individuality, apart from the one predestined for her by Jenna and Katie.

Emily had a tendency to do whatever she pleased, but she’d also been reared in rationality. Meanwhile, your own mum’s parenting tactics were inconsistent at best and at most completely, fucking mental.

It felt a bit mental, in fact, standing on those steps at Emily’s University in not enough layers and shivering horribly with each unsteady inhale of your cigarette. But then you’d seen her, emerging from the building with loads of others, though entirely distinct in her own, Emily Fitch sort of way. Understated, and yet completely unique.

And you’d smiled at the thought of her – this petite, feisty, adoring girl, with brash red hair contrasting her sweet, shy smile – being yours. That you’d somehow, without really trying, managed to keep her for yourself, away from all these other people. That even while actively resisting the idea of her, Emily knew better – sweetly badgering you into accepting what you really wanted. What you’d wanted all along. They’d never know it, this lot passing you by. They’d never have that sense of loss at not having her in that way – all to themselves, as you did – and yet you’d pitied them just the same.

At Emily’s frowning face, you’d fully grinned, knowing she’d no doubt feared having left her mobile inside [a constant occurrence of her forgetfulness]. And then you’d tossed the end of your fag over a banister before heading up the steps towards her. It was like swimming upstream, weaving clumsily between the crowds of students with your stupid, oversized carry-all, but worth every rude look or rough bump against your shoulder when you’d glanced up to see the look on her face.

It’s the memory of that look that makes you smile, paused where you are near an iron gate on Emily’s quiet, South London street, because you can see it so perfectly. The way her eyes went wide and her lips, parted slightly, twitched in confusion until a smile tugged them upwards. It’s enough – the anticipation of seeing her face, and all the lovely things it does – to push you forward up the walk.

You hear the door chime go from inside and then wait, adjusting the strap of your rucksack and nervously biting your lip. A minute feels like thirty, and you can’t detect any movement from inside, so you step back, checking the time on your mobile. When less than two minutes have passed, your hand reaches out again towards the door, but you pull it back to grip the strap of your bag and count to twenty. Still nothing. So you again reach forward and hear the muffled chime, trying to keep your breaths measured, your heart rate steady. You’re about to send a text, resigned to a foiled plan to surprise her, when you hear quick footsteps. And your heartbeat races as you stand up straight, clenching at the hem of your tee shirt.

It’s quiet again for long seconds where your nervousness continues to spiral out of control, and then you hear your name, like a reprimand, from behind the door.

“Naomi Campbell, tell me you are _not_ stood on my doorstep.”

It takes a few beats to actually work up a response because you’d not exactly planned for this sort of reaction. But then, it’s still Emily’s voice. And the sound of it is so close, you press your hands to the doorframe and lean in to be nearer to it.

“I am, actually.”

“How the fuck are you – why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Her voice sounds a fraction louder, and you glance down to see she’s opened the letterbox at your knees.

You crouch down then, resting on your haunches, and speak through the narrow space. Cautiously, because she’s pretty wound up, you explain, “I thought you liked surprises?”

You can just make out the corner of her mouth as she answers, the rest of her face shadowed by the angle. “There are surprises, Naomi, and then there’s _you_ turning up from across a bloody ocean when I’ve not even had a shower or cleaned the breakfast dishes, and I—“

“Em, I just really needed to speak with you, okay? And – look, are we seriously going to continue this conversation through a fucking letterbox?”

After a pause and a distinctly _Emily_ sigh, a latch clicks softly, and you stand, holding your breath.

When she pulls back on the door, her face is doing something lovely, as you knew it would. The fading shock and realisation showing at the corners of her mouth, in the perfect gleam of those dark brown eyes. You’d planned to say something profound, like _hello_ or _I’ve missed you_ , but seeing her renders you absolutely speechless. Your mouth just gapes open as a breath quietly escapes.

“You weren’t meant to see it – not like this, obviously,” Emily says with a frown, tugging at a few, tangled strands of hair.

You struggle not to reach out and touch it – the length of it shortened just above her shoulders and its shade the loveliest hues of dark reds and browns. Like the wild cherries that grew along the property line of a commune from your youth, dipped in chocolate. Like the colour of something you’d want to lick from the tips of your fingers.

“This isn’t fair,” she pouts, still not stepping back enough to let you into flat. “You arriving when I look like basic shite.”

Not that it matters, Emily blocking the entrance of her flat, since you’ve completely lost sensation in your legs and feet.

“Emily,” you say, biting back a smile at her commentary, because in a hundred years you can’t imagine her looking anything less than effortlessly gorgeous, “can you let me inside, please?”

“I don’t suppose you’d give me ten minutes to clean up a bit?” she asks, squinting one eye closed and twisting her mouth in a way that makes it impossible not to stare at it.

“No!” you say through a laugh. “I’ve just spent the last eight hours on an overnight flight – I could give a shit about your dirty dishes,” you finish with an eye roll.

Emily bites at her lip, fiddles again with an unruly curl beside her ear, and then takes one step back. You follow with a step forward, and then move further into the flat in this manner – one step forward, one step back, like a slow-timed waltz.

Emily’s clicked the door shut behind you by the time it all starts to settle into the air. The atmosphere thick with it.

That you’ve made it.

That you’ve come back for good.

That you’ve done so with such little forethought. [ _Stubbornly impetuous_ , your mum would tut.]

That she’s finally stood there, right in front of you, an arm’s length away.

Your stomach flutters as each realisation hits you. Emily must be experiencing something similar – must sense the particles changing in the air around you – because as you take a deep breath, you watch her struggle to swallow.  

Everything’s different this time, or so it should be. So unlike the uncertainties that surrounded your time together at Christmas. Because things have been said, sentiments expressed, letters written, decisions made – like international flights and submitted resignations. So you can’t quite figure where the hesitations and nervousness are stemmed. Except that Emily’s dressed in decidedly unattractive attire – old track shorts and a threadbare tee shirt without a hint of make-up – and has never looked more alluring. Your mouth goes dry at the thought of being any closer to her than you already are, and yeah, perhaps that’s accounting for some of the nerves.

“So,” she then says, breaking the silence though none of the tension. “You wanted to maybe explain why it is that you’re here, in my flat, when you’re not scheduled to arrive for two more weeks?” Emily’s wearing this challenging expression, one you’ve not ever been able to resist for how fucking attractive it is.

So you shrug, looking off towards her kitchen, and then say, “Oh, I was just, you know, in the neighbourhood.”

She’s smirking when you look back to catch her eye, and if she’d looked irresistible before, the fact that you’re both still vertical is a fucking miracle at this point. “That so?”

There’s a heat in your chest, and you think it could mean you’ve broken out in hives or something because you’ve got an urge to start itching at the skin there. But you refrain, tucking both hands behind your back and leaning against them along the wall.

It’s come down to this moment, and you can actually feel the pressure of it threatening to collapse all around you. _It’s now or never_ , you think.

“Yeah, it’s a nice area,” you tell her, biting at your lip to keep from smiling too widely. Emily begins eyeing you curiously while you’re both leant up against opposite walls of the narrow entryway. “I’m thinking of finding a place here, actually. In this, um, neighbourhood.”

“You’re being awfully coy,” she says, folding her arms along her stomach.

Your breath almost catches before you can say, “Am I?”

She then takes a step forward, just one, as she’s saying your name. It’s a lethal combination, and you almost shudder in response when Emily demands, “Tell me the truth.”

Your mouth opens to respond, and you then stutter, “I want – I mean, can’t we just—“

Everything feels heavy in your chest, your hands and shoulders shaking from the build-up that’s about to come crashing out into open air. You swallow, blinking slowly, before continuing. “Well, I thought we could just … be here. You know, together?”

Emily’s face blanks entirely and her voice, barely audible, scratches out. “What?”

“I want to stay here,” you swallow, losing air by the second, “with you. I don’t want to crash at Effy’s, and I don’t want to look for a sodding flat that I’ll not even use half the time because I’m here for you, Em. I’m here to be _with_ you.”

It’s sort of like that time in your kitchen back in Brooklyn, when you’d accidentally told Emily you’d spent a decade waiting to have her like this all over again. But this time, it’s infinitely better.

Because when Emily pushes into you, her hands gripping to your waist, you’re not caught off-guard in the least. Because it’s not just the reaction you’ve anticipated her having, it’s the one you desperately wanted.

And so you grab onto any part of her you can while Emily’s mouth goes mad against your own. Sighing into the contact, you feel every ounce of tension lift from your neck and shoulders where Emily’s now grabbed hold to pull herself up. The kisses are speaking volumes, everything you’ve ridiculously avoided saying aloud – _I’ve missed you, I’ve wanted this, I love you_.

You reach up to thread your fingers through her hair, and she falls in that much closer. When you push back into her and Emily stumbles, breaking apart for a breath of air, you remember there’s more you’re meant to tell her. And more she needs to know before agreeing to this slapdash proposal.

So you hold her face between your hands, adrenaline from fresh kisses now fuelling your rapid speech. “I mean it. I want to do this – I don’t care what we call it, but I want to do _this,_ ” you kiss her again, “indefinitely.”

Emily presses her lips together firmly, her eyes shiny and darker than you’ve seen them in ages, and she doesn’t break eye contact for anything. Just watches intensely as you catch your breath, as she struggles for hers.

“I don’t – _fuck_ , I don’t have a ring, I don’t even have a _job_ ,” you laugh, resting your forehead to hers and closing your eyes. “But I want this. I want me and you, and Lewis as well, when he’s not with his other mum.” You open your eyes and Emily’s are searing into them. “I can’t do this partway, okay? I can’t be here, in London, without being _right here_ , like this. And, I just want to be sure you know that I mean—“

“Shut up, you idiot,” Emily laughs, pulling on your shoulders and tilting her head until your mouth again meets with hers.

She tugs at your bag first, which you quickly deposit near the front door with a soft _clunk_ , but it’s then your jacket and tee shirt with which she finds offense. And you sort of wonder, struggling to strip from them without losing contact with her lips and tongue, if this will become some kind of new standard – discarding clothing in common areas, along doorways and corridors.

“God,” Emily breathes into your bared chest, her lips no longer reaching yours because she’s not raised up on her toes. And Emily, in bare feet, is extremely short. She kisses all the heated skin there that’s no longer breaking out in nervous rashes but in steeped arousal. “I’ve missed you.” She lays her palms flat against your stomach and fans her fingers wide. “I’ve missed you so fucking much.”

It takes little to no effort to spin her about so you can push her in any direction you please, and your mouth is back on hers – open, hungry, greedy with want.

You start towards her bedroom, guiding Emily backwards, but she redirects into the sitting room, and says in-between increasingly sloppy kisses, “No, in here – I don’t want to wake Lewis.”

She’s pushed you back into the sofa, and moves to straddle your lap when your brain, lagged from so much physical contact, catches up to what she’s said. “Wait – what? Lewis is _here_?”

Emily smiles, places kisses along your neck and just below your left ear. “He’s down for his morning nap,” she says, sliding the strap of your bra off your shoulder and kissing the skin there.

“Well, what if – what if he wakes up? What if he _hears_ us?”

She sighs, sits back to remove her own shirt, casually, as if you’d just asked about the weather. She’s not even wearing a bra, just those crappy track short that have ridden up so high, you’re now seeing more of her than you have in far too long. And, well, _that_ effectively distracts you from any other, fucking thing.

Emily holds your face between her hands, smiles sweetly and tells you, “Relax. He’s a sound sleeper on an extremely regular schedule. But,” she cranes her neck towards the clock, and you watch all the tendons twist and flex as she does. “He’ll be up in another half hour, and so,” she then nods pointedly towards your chest, “I’d kind of like to get on with the business of, you know, seeing you naked already.”

It’s a difficult request to turn down, particularly when your body is already responding to the minimal  contact you’ve had. To the weight of Emily pressing into you and all the skin she’s so recently exposed. Especially when her eyes rake over you, and the want you see in them is so palpable, it makes it hard to breathe.

Being in Emily’s flat, inserting yourself into her life, is still a lot to take on. You glance quickly around the room, where countless remnants of a life you’ve yet to experience lay about. It’s a life you don’t fully understand, can’t possibly comprehend until you’ve fully committed. Until you’ve thrust yourself into it. It should be somewhat terrifying, and maybe there is an emotion of sorts lingering somewhere behind everything else that’s more prevalent.

Because, at the moment, you can see only her. And for as long as you can remember, Emily – seeing her, wanting her, needing to be with her – has always been the only thing that mattered.

So you smirk up at her, running the tips of your index fingers down her chest and onto the slope of her breasts until her eyes fall closed. She whispers _‘fuck’_ just as her head tips back. It's incredibly, fucking sexy, watching her lose composure with hardly any effort. It effectively erases everything -- the distance, the time, the loneliness -- of the past several months, just hearing an ounce of desperate profanity dropped from Emily's lips. 

“Well,” you start, leaning forward until you can reach a nipple, taking it slowly into your mouth and then releasing it with a soft _pop_. “I had no idea, Emily.”

She grips onto your shoulders, eyes still shut and breaths unsteady, when you take the second nipple, softly rolling your tongue around until it peaks, and she croaks out, “What?”

You smile at her pained expression, and kiss the skin between her breasts. “That you’d grown to be so _incredibly_ romantic.”

You’re not sure how sound a sleeper Lewis actually is, but you hope Emily meant he sleeps like the fucking dead.

Because she’s not tried, even a little, to keep things quiet.

"Jesus -- _fuck_ , Naomi. That feels fucking amazing."

You try to swallow up her words, explitives and all, by kissing her, urgently and open-mouthed, as your hand finds a famliar rhythm. But it's not enough, and she can't be kept quiet anyway, and so you move quickly to place your mouth where your hand left off, hoping by some slim margin that Emily will remember to tone things down in her very tiny flat. 

She instead comes loudly, into open air, without restraint. And it echoes like the city’s been emptied, leaving only you and her to fill its vast space.

You kiss your way back up her body, taking time to recall every detail. You’ll forget later – the curvature of each breast, the markings along her stomach, the angles of her hipbones – and be forced to take her again, and again, and again. The memory needs constant reminders, repetition to strengthen. And solidifying these memories of Emily will become your favourite exercise.

You’re finally level with her again, and bury your face in her neck, in that gorgeous hair. She needn’t worry about not having showered. She smells exactly as you’ve always remembered her.

“Jesus,” Emily sighs, her chest still rising and falling in heavy breaths, and you just laugh into the warm nook you’ve found, pressing still-wet kisses to her skin.

The room goes quiet again, peaceful with the sound of her breathing as it starts to slow, and you absently find her fingers to lace together, pull apart, and find again.

“Em?”

She hums, unhooks her fingers from yours and starts to move them slowly up your arm and back down.

“About what I said.” You’re anxious again, just like that.

A knot in your throat that you can’t work down because Emily hadn’t really said anything. She’d responded in other ways – with her hands and mouth and the heady scent still trapped between you. And it’s ridiculous that those things aren’t answer enough. But still, it’s a big ask. Her response is so obvious, and yet you need to _hear_ her say it.

Your heartbeat start to accelerate, and you wonder if she can feel it – the way your chest is pressed against her side, without barrier.

You don’t need to see her face to know she’s smirking, her mouth crooked up in such a way, because you can actually hear it in her tone. “Which part – when you admitted to having come here as an unemployed waif to leach off my pitiful teaching salary?”

Emily laughs lightly, finding herself to be fucking hilarious obviously, and you can’t help the smile that crawls along your lips, because it really is a lovely sound.

But then, clearing your throat, you say, “Well, _that_ and … everything else?”

She starts to shift, disrupting the crevice along her neck where you’d settled. Where you felt safe and warm and content to stay for as long as she’d allow. Emily wants you to look at her, though. She wants you to see that you have no secrets. That everything you’ve told her – and everything you’ve yet to tell her – she already knows.

It’s how things have always worked between you.

You’ll faff about, bury your head in the sand, refuse to acknowledge what’s been happening, what you’ve been feeling, what’s been bound to transpire all along. And Emily will sit patiently, prod when it’s needed, but will always be waiting with open ears to listen when you come to tell her that you’ve figured it all out.

She’s clever, Emily is, but when it comes to the business of you, of being _with_ you, she’s a fucking genius.

Her gaze is so warm, the way she watches you with so much open affection, and it’s instantly better than being pressed to the skin of her neck. She licks her lips and leans in to kiss you, soft and subtle, but incredibly slow, so that when she pulls back, you have to catch your breath.

Emily then smiles, and it’s a little insincere and a lot cheeky, when she tells you, “It took you fucking long enough.”

**

It happens on your third Saturday in London. When some of the novelty has dimmed, and now it’s just you and Emily [and sometimes a baby] in this new space.

Your first full week – the one following your arrival – had been a wildly blurred sexual marathon of sorts. With Lewis back with Rose, you hardly had much reason to not remain naked for days on end. Emily mostly kept you in nothing but bed linens or blankets, and it was fortunate, actually, since you’d hardly brought more than three outfits to London.

You wake up tangled in the bedclothes, in limbs that aren’t your own. You wake to kisses along your neck and spine, to roaming hands and hot breaths. Your muscles ache – because, Christ, you’ve not had this much sex since age seventeen. But you don’t let the exertion tire you. You allow nothing, in fact, to deter the contact that Emily craves – that you crave in equal measure.  

But then Lewis returns the following week, and you struggle to find your place in a pre-existing routine that’s constantly happening all around you. It’s all so far from simple.

It’s consistently frustrating, actually, like trying to fit a square peg [you] into a round hole [them]. And Emily’s either unaware or feigning oblivion to avoid broaching the subject. Either way, by the time Saturday’s come around, your blood is heated to a boil, ready to bubble over the edge, where you’re stood in the sitting room. And Emily’s face looks shocked and saddened, ill-prepared for this kind of row so soon after you’ve found your way back to her. But, it’s too dangerous – letting things simmer just below the surface – and this much you’ve learnt. So it’s time to test the stock – to see if the pieces of your lives that you and Emily have hastily fastened back together can hold the weight of the life you’re trying to create.

**

_Some days prior_

Your boxes, some of them anyway, arrive one morning when Lewis is asleep and Emily is reading and you’re reaching out to contacts, via email, who have previously promised you employment, should you ever leave New York.

Much like everything else she does, Emily reads adorably. Folded, as she is, into an armchair near the windows and so entranced in what she’s reading, her brow is furrowed and her mouth hangs slightly parted as her lips move along with each word. Her hair doesn’t stay in place as easily, now it’s shorter, particularly not in the morning when it’s full of messy, wandering curls. And so she’s left to tuck the stubborn bits behind her ear, only to have them fall back along her face moments later.

It’s more than a bit distracting, and you’ve repeatedly had to bite your lip and shake your head just to return your attention to the laptop in front of you. Focus your attention to the task of securing employment instead of watching Emily doing completely adorable _Emily_ things.

Lewis wakes when the movers enter the flat, their voices rather gruff and their movements sort of loud in what had been, moments before, such a peaceful flat. Even after they’ve gone, Lewis still won’t settle. And Emily just apologises for his mood, sweeping him off to the nursery before you can comment on how you’d go mental as well if a crew of men barged in and disrupted _your_ nap. But then you’re left standing alone in the crowded corridor with stacks of boxes on both walls, though it suddenly feels rather empty.   

**

The first time you see Rose, it’s entirely unexpected and _mostly_ uneventful.

Emily’s showering, and you’re meant to join her, but just as you’ve ended a call to an art director in Camden, there’s a knock at the door. It’s still all a bit awkward – living in a flat that you share with Emily, though not exactly feeling any ownership to your surroundings – but if it’s a parcel delivery or a sales call, you feel fully equipped to interact. So you head towards the door with almost a bounce in your step.

What you’d not planned on then, is being met with a familiar pair of hazel eyes, their similarity to Lewis’ more unsettling  than before for how much time you’ve now spent with him. It’s Rose’s week with Lewis so you can’t imagine why she’d be coming round, though it’s all terribly irrelevant – your reasoning – as you now find her standing on Emily’s front steps.

And you’ve known the confrontation is inevitable. Rose still being very much a part of Emily’s life, and now yours, by proxy. But you’re unprepared for just how complex your feelings on seeing her will be. Everything ranging from malicious anger to a sickening unease courses through you in that first second upon opening the door.

It’s one of the things you’ve not talked much about: the incident. Emily spoke very little about it in her letters, and you’ve never felt terribly comfortable asking for greater detail. But what little she had said – all those months ago, a broken mess in your hotel room – comes flooding back as you’re stood there, looking for benign words that will unfurl your clenched fists.

“Oh, hi,” you say coolly. You’ve managed to dress for the day, in an old tee shirt and shorts at least. A fucking relief, that. Even still, you cling to the door like a shield of defence.

“Oh, Naomi. Hello – I hadn’t, well I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.”

You’re initially distracted by her statement, wondering suddenly if Emily’s neglected to fill Rose in on the fact that you’ve returned. Or, that you’ve returned to be with _her_. Or, that you’ve moved into her flat on a permanent basis.

But then it’s odd, seeing Rose so uncertain of herself – so clearly caught by surprise – and that becomes more distracting than Emily’s possible omissions.

Seeing Rose in this way is something almost familiar, like imagining Jenna Fitch in a rare moment of unpreparedness. Two people always buttoned-up, always on the ready, and rarely caught with their knickers around their ankles. You’ve sort of drawn an unsettling comparison between the two, which makes you squirm uncomfortably, shifting from your right foot to your left. But luckily, Rose has never been graceless for long periods of time, and recovers almost instantly.

“I apologise for the intrusion.”

“It’s not a problem,” you shrug. “Though Emily’s currently, um, indisposed.” Something flickers across her face then, and you clear your throat to clarify, “Shower.”

“Oh, it’s alright, really. I just need something for Lewis. I don’t want to bother her.”

“Would you like to—“

You swing the door open a bit more and hold your arm out in a gesture of invitation.

“Yes, thank you.” Rose steps inside and then pauses, hands clasped together near her waist. “I was just wondering if I could have a look for Sophie. Emily forgot to pack her in with Lewis’ things yesterday, and he seems to fancy her the most.”

“Uh, Sophie?”  

Rose smiles kindly, an expression she’s worn nearly every time you’ve seen her over the past year. You’re just not sure when it started causing the hair at the base of your neck to stand on end.

“Sophie the giraffe,” she answers, regarding you with some sort of warm condescension.

“Oh, right. ‘Course, the _giraffe_ ,” you say with an eye roll.

Rose is still smiling, you can see it from your periphery, and you can’t really stand to look at her full-on. Not without hearing everything she’s not saying. So you clear your throat again, and look off with a wave of your hand down the corridor. “I’ll just fetch it for you from the, uh, from the nursery.”

You leave her stood there and head off without another word. It’s not fair then, that Rose’s voice – calmed and even – follows you into Lewis’ nursery and echoes around the empty room. All the implications of that smile. All the things you know it says. It bounces off the grey walls, everything she’s expressed with one, stupid look that you now hear so clearly, ringing in your ears.

It says, _I know things you never will._

It says, _I understand things about Emily and about this child that you can’t possibly._

It says, _I’ve a level of experience to which you won’t measure._

Sophie’s lying on the changing table where Lewis had been gnawing her head the morning prior during a nappy change. And you snatch her up, glaring momentarily at her large, innocent eyes before realising it’s not _Sophie’s_ fucking fault that Emily’s ex is keen to aggravate your insecurities. That she’s done it so effortlessly and without actually saying a fucking word. You shouldn’t let it happen – it shouldn’t even be possible, for Rose to manipulate your confidence in this way.

Emily chose _you_. She abandoned everything, crossed continents, risked it all, just to tell you this. Just to prove it was _you_ she wanted. She waited for you to come around, for you to reconsider your stubborn ideals. And she then went along with your warped perceptions of cautious rediscovery.

It seems so irrelevant now, all those steps you took along the way. Now that you’re back. Now that she’s a part of your days again. But you needed that caution. You needed that time. You needed to be sure.

 _Emily_ , you think, _was sure from the very start_.

And so you exit the nursery with your chin held a bit higher, your shoulders a bit fuller. _‘Awkward moments are only what you make of them’_ – some piece of shit advice your mum once gave that was utterly _useless_ at thirteen, but sounds incredibly wise almost twenty years later.

You then _hear_ Emily’s voice before actually seeing her. “Oh, Jesus! _Fuck_.”

Emily’s grabbed at the sheer, blue drapery of a nearby window as you enter the corridor to see her at one end, completely starkers and near the bedroom. While Rose, still stood near the door at the other end, looks on with her eyebrows raised.

“Oh, um, Rose came round looking for Sophie,” you tell Emily, waving the small animal between your thumb and forefinger.

“I can see that,” Emily deadpans, creeping back against the wall. She then makes awkward eye contact with Rose. “Hello.”

When you bite your lip to keep from smiling at her, Emily glares harder. Rose’s answering _‘hello’_ is muffled by your own amusement. You and Emily caught in some stand-off of duelling expressions – Emily shooting daggers, and you trying not to double-over in laughter.

“I’m sorry again for the intrusion,” Rose interrupts, and the moment you’re sharing with Emily is temporarily broken.  

You look back towards Rose, who’s at least had the decency to avert her eyes, and then take three or four steps towards Emily.

Emily, who’s still very much naked.

Emily, who’s still scowling.

Emily, who’s still flush against the wall and looking like she wishes the floor could swallow her up.

Once you’re stood directly in front of her, still smirking heavily, you pull at the drapery to which she’s clutching until she reluctantly lets it fall. You then guide her backwards, shuffling towards the bedroom doorway, one hand on her hip. Her naked body, still pink from the hot water, and perhaps also from embarrassment, remains fully blocked by your stature until she’s safely out of Rose’s line of vision. And you think it’s never been more fortunate, your difference in height.

“Why don’t you get back in the shower, yeah? I’ll just be a minute.” You lean in, place a quick kiss to Emily’s cheek. And then, lowering your voice, you say near her ear, “If you’re done showcasing your bits to our houseguest, that is.”           

Emily’s answering _‘fuck off’_ is barely above a harsh whisper, and it prickles the hair at the back of your neck in an entirely different way.

You watch her walk away, perving happily at her retreating form – sloped back and perky bum – before running a hand through your hair and turning away from the bedroom doorway. Rose doesn’t make eye contact until you’re back at the door and handing over the sodding giraffe.

“Like I said,” you tell her, “it’s not a problem.”  

Her smile says something else now – subdued in its concession. It shouldn’t feel like a victory, like you’ve won a bloody pissing contest with Emily as the prize. But it’s hard not to feel that way when Rose can only nod in response, uttering a quiet _‘thank you’_ before leaving the flat.

It’s hard to convince yourself it’s not about winning as you strip out of your tee shirt and shorts and knickers, finding Emily already laughing as you step under the shower spray. Kissing her quickly and sloppily, feeling her breasts press into you, naked and wet, feels like you’ve won it all.

Later that evening, though, she’s back to apologising. For Rose’s presence. For Lewis. Even for Sophie, for chrissake, who’s hardly culpable. You’ve just made love, on your way out of the shower while in the middle of towelling dry. And the sheets are now damp, the pillows soaked through from your wet hair. If you weren’t so relaxed, your body entirely limp from orgasm, you’d be more likely to engage.

Because Emily’s line of reasoning is flawed, and there are things you’re meant to tell her about this new arrangement. And though you’ve every intention of combating her constant string of apologies, at the moment you can’t muster more than a quiet humming in response.

Emily’s laid on her side, watching you but not touching, because it’s too hot – the residual steam from your shower not helping – and your skin sticks together wherever there’s contact.

“You’re well useless after a shag.”

Your head lolls to the side, facing her with narrowed eyes. “Manual labour’s not typically required after sex, is it?”

“No,” Emily laughs lightly. “No, of course not – it’s just, I guess I’d forgotten.” She presses her palm flat to your stomach, tries to move it up between your breasts but the movement isn’t fluid. Her hand sticks along the surface, skin to skin. “It’s nice, you know, remembering.”

“I’m glad the memory of my incapacitation is a happy one,” you say flatly, your eyes back towards the ceiling.

She laughs again, moves to kiss you once at the corner of your mouth. Then twice, as you turn towards her, your lips hardly able to respond properly. When Emily leans back, she brushes wet strands of hair from your face and tells you, “They’re all that way for me, you know. Every memory of you, I’m happy to have rediscovered it.”

**

_Presently_

“You’ve _got_ to fucking stop this, Emily. _Christ!_ ”

It’s how things start.

Or well, it starts with another unwarranted apology. And then you’re at the tipping point. Everything spilt out and running over the brim. You’ve never been one to beat around it either, always diving in head first with fists swinging.

It’s apparently something that hasn’t changed over the years, though Emily seems to have forgotten how to manoeuvre your outbursts. Because her response is too quiet, too much like she’s been sucker-punched. And it drains the fight out of you immediately.

“What do you mean? Look, I’m sorry if—“

“No – that’s it, Em. _That –_ you’re apologising for every, fucking thing, and you’ve got to stop.”

“I’m just trying to make things better for you. I know this can’t be easy, okay? It’s a massive adjustment, and I just – I don’t want—“ she stops short of finishing, stops just shy of honesty, and shakes her head.

“You don’t want what?” you challenge, keeping your voice raised just enough that you’re no longer shouting but making yourself heard.

“I’m just scared, alright?”

“Scared of what? That I’ll change my mind? You’re scared I’ll leave all this and go running back to New York if everything’s not fucking perfect?”

Emily looks away, sniffs quietly and presses her lips together.

Your voice calms instantly. “Is that it?”

She shrugs heavily, leant up against the kitchen doorway. “I don’t know.”

A sigh escapes when you collapse onto the sofa, beckoning Emily to join you by patting the space next to your thigh. When she sits, you turn towards her, tucking one leg up under the other.

Your demeanour has softened entirely when you tell her, “It can’t work like this, Ems. It honestly _won’t_ work like this.”

“Like what?” she asks meekly.

You toss your arms into the air, let them fall with a flop against the sofa cushions.

“With you running around unnecessarily putting out fires, pretending that you and I can live in a world outside of the one that already exists – the one that includes run-ins with Rose, and daily routines with Lewis. Whether he’s bloody happy or not.”

Emily bites her lip, looks down to her hands in her lap.

“Look,” you tell her. “I didn’t decide to come back under the delusion it’d be all sunshine and rainbows, alright? We’re going to fuck things up, _a lot_.” Emily looks back up, worry still creasing her features, but you keep on. “I’m going to piss you off by leaving my hair in the drain, which will get disgusting and clogged. And you’re going to leave the cap off the toothpaste, like, fucking _regularly_ , and I’ll obviously want to throttle you because of it.”

She smiles then, still biting at her upper lip, but relaxing minutely.

“Thing is, Em, I can’t have you refusing to call me out on my shit because you’re scared. The way we argue is half the reason we work so well to begin with.”

Emily laughs, tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “Sort of an unique art form, isn’t it?”

“Too right,” you agree, returning her smile. “You can’t try and have a life with me, apart from the one you already have with Lewis and Rose. I don’t want that. It’s like – it’s like I’m only getting a portion of you or something.” Emily nods, turns where she’s sat to face you more fully. “And refusing to confront this new dynamic for fear that I’ll leave is just – well, it’s really, fucking stupid.” Your voice softens then while you keep your eyes locked with hers. “Because I’m not going anywhere, alright? Definitely not of my own volition and not even if you’re pushing me out.”

“I wouldn’t _ever_ —“ she interjects, her face almost panicked in sincerity.

“I know,” you smile, taking her right hand, which she’s been worrying with her left. “I wouldn’t let you.”

It’s everything that’s not been said. Everything still lingering from a decade prior – the remnants of a life you left behind in Manchester. _It’s fucking gone now_ , you think. Extinguished entirely, just as it should have been ages ago.

You have loads of sex that night. Just after Lewis is whisked off to the nursery, Emily comes back to find you cooking supper, and starts placing kisses between your shoulder blades. You burn the rice and overcook the vegetables until they’re indecipherable mush.

But Emily says, breathless and pressing into you where you’ve fallen into the sofa, “Fuck it, we’ll order takeaway.” And pushes her hand between your legs.

Later in bed, after pizza and a few beers, she’s on you again – fingers wandering, mouth insistent. You think of her being bound by shackles, made immovable by a fear of losing you, and how she’s now shattered the irons – freed maybe by your reassurance. She seems lighter anyway. There’s a quickness in her movements, like she’s relearning to flex her muscles – a tension and release against your own – without restriction.

Because Emily is everywhere all at once, impossible to track with sensations of arousal firing synapses in parallel. You’re fairly helpless once she’s finished with you – marking your body with her mouth and fingers – much as you’ve always been. And Emily just crawls along your body, kissing various patches of skin as if afraid she’s left any inch untouched. Exhaustion overtakes you eventually, Emily having curled into your side and breathing steadily onto your chest.

**

Morning comes with sounds that aren’t yet familiar, still jarring in that they are, for long seconds while your brain clears of sleep, unrecognisable. A baby monitor sits on Emily’s bedside table,  Lewis’ happy squawking from its speaker breaking through the quiet of the room, and your eyes blink at the sound. Emily’s moved to her own side of the bed, her back to you while she sleeps. Your hand reaches out to run your fingers down its length, but she doesn’t stir at the touch nor at the sound of her son chirping merrily from the nursery.

“Em.” It’s barely a whisper and muffled slightly into your pillow.

He keeps at it, Lewis does, stringing together jumbled baby noises that you can’t quite believe Emily can sleep through at this point.

So you perch on an elbow, peering over her shoulder and say again, “Em.”

From this angle you can now not only hear Lewis but see him as well, a grainy and blurred kind of video – like wearing night-vision goggles – on the small monitor screen. You kiss Emily’s upper arm and then her shoulder cap, but she only shifts, burying her face further into the pillow.

It seemed like a good idea from the comfort of Emily’s bed, but stood now where you are – squinting into the semi-dark of the nursery – you begin second-guessing the brilliance of this decision. Lewis has learnt to pull himself onto any ledge within reach: low tables, chairs, the sofa. He’s done so upon waking, and you can just barely see his eyes peering over the rail of the cot where he’s got both hands clutched, gumming the wood. You move slowly into the room, and Lewis eyes your approach in what appears to be a cautious manner.

“So,” you say, “you’d like to get out of there then?” And standing over him is a bit more overwhelming than you’d anticipated.

He considers you for another minute, staring upwards with his mouth agape and his chin glossed over in drool. So you take another step forward, placing a hand on the cot rail. And Lewis then smiles, reaching out one hand until a cluster of soggy fingers touches your thumb.

“Right.” You clear your throat, reaching over the edge, and pull him out.

It’s the first you’ve held him since Lewis was very small, not more than six weeks, on that day when you first allowed yourself to imagine all this. When you and Emily started to give way to more than you should, and you caught glimpses of some life you were maybe always meant to have. You suspect it will be incredibly awkward, holding him after so much time and without Emily’s supervision. And it might have been, had Lewis not grabbed onto you so easily, wrapping one arm around your shoulder and clutching to the thin cotton of your sleep shirt. In the end, it’s all very unceremonious.

In the kitchen, after a _mostly_ successful nappy change, you find you’re a bit less lost than you should be; as it seems you’ve been paying more attention to Emily’s daily routine than you’d thought.

Emily keeps Lewis’ dried breakfast cereals on a low shelf in the cupboard, and as you reach for one of the boxes, an instruction on food preparation runs absently through your head. You reach for the bowl and spoon next, both brightly coloured and made of plastic. Lewis has quieted, still holding loosely to your shirt, but watching intently without making a sound, as you move about the kitchen. It’s only after you’ve begun heating the water that you realise you’re apparently capable of functioning one-handed. When you’ve placed him in the highchair, Lewis rediscovers his voice, screeching unhappily as the tray snaps into place.

“Look here,” you tell him, his face starting to break miserably while you fasten the strap around his middle. “Your mum’s apparently neglecting your well-being this morning, so you’re stuck with me, alright? And, I can appreciate your distaste for this sort of confinement,” you comment, struggling to snap the straps together between Lewis’ legs as he squirms, “but I don’t make the rules, mate. Anyway, the quicker _you’re_ fed, the quicker _I_ get caffeine. Then we’re both sorted, yeah?”

Lewis whimpers, a bottom lip protruding as he looks up to you with watery eyes until you’ve dumped a handful of dry cereal puffs onto his tray, which he then works to snatch up between his fingers. They mostly stick to his tiny hands in odd places, though he manages to get one or two puffs into his mouth despite not being especially dexterous.

With coffee brewing, filling up the small kitchen with an aroma that waters at the back of your throat, you sit facing Lewis with a bowl of oats porridge and attempt the first spoonful. He opens his mouth dutifully, like a baby bird, and you place the spoon near his tongue until Lewis closes his mouth, and then slide the spoon out. Easy enough, that.

“Fucking child’s play,” you mumble, grinning smugly and preparing a second spoonful.

He takes it, though less enthusiastically. By the third attempt, he’s clamped his mouth tightly, scowling at the spoon hovering in front of him. When Lewis is momentarily distracted by a cereal puff stuck to his elbow, you pour a cup of coffee before resituating in front of him with renewed determination.

“Come on now, Lewis.” You spin the contents around the bowl, eying it carefully. “You’re meant to have at least 55 grams of this shite, so says your mum – can’t be all bad.” You bring the spoon near his mouth again, but he turns his head from side to side, avoiding your offering. “Look, it’s delicious – see?” Bringing the bowl closer to your face, you turn your nose up a bit at the smell. But Lewis is watching intently, so you quickly turn your frown upwards, smiling widely. “Mmm, looks _very_ tasty. Shall I just have a bite then?”

Tentatively, you then bring the spoon to your mouth, and Lewis’ eyes are rapt, his tiny mouth opening slightly just as you do the same. You take the spoonful – a small one, meant for babies – and almost immediately lurch for the sink.

“Oh, _Christ_ , that’s fucking _awful_.” Lewis laughs, claps his hands together while you try to rid the foul taste from your mouth with a long sip of coffee. “I’m sorry, mate. I just – I can’t do that to you.” The bowl and the spoon and the horrible paste posing as oat porridge go into the sink with a solid _thud_. “Maybe just a bottle then, what do you say?”

Lewis bangs his palms against the bright green tray of his highchair and echoes, “Ba-ba-ba-ba.”

Grabbing a bottle from the fridge, you shake it a few times, examining its contents. “Right, can’t cock this up can we?” you say through a sigh, looking once toward the bedroom for any sign of Emily. Though it appears  she’s shagged herself into a state of comatose.

Not much later, you’ve brought Lewis to the sofa where he’s suckling happily on a bottle while you leaf through an art magazine. You’re trying to read about some of London’s ‘Artists to Watch’ that will be showcased at various galleries in the coming year. Lewis has been content to calmly sit with you, cornered snugly into the notch of your elbow and shoulder. But he leans forward as you flip the page to touch its glossy photographs.

“A fan of Robert Currie, are you?”

Lewis’ hand slides down the page, his tiny fingers squeaking along the shiny surface, and he looks up to you at the sound.

“Right. A bit abstract for my tastes, too.”

He holds his bottle with one hand, milk gathering in the corners of his mouth and eyes wide. He then smacks the page and seems to enjoy the sound of that as well. As you turn the page, the process repeats. You laugh a bit at the way he seems pleased by simple sounds, the surprise of his own creations registering in the quick blinks of his eyes.

This is how she finds you.

“Hi.”

“Oh, how nice of you to join us,” you’re saying blithely as Emily leans in to first kiss the top of Lewis’ head then curls onto the arm of the sofa beside you. Lewis spins in your arms, reaching for Emily as she touches his face, before he settles back down to your lap.

“I’ve been up, for a bit,” she croaks, pushing unruly strands of hair from her face. “Reading mostly.”

“Thought you’d have yourself a lazy morning then?”

Emily smiles down on you, places a very chaste kiss on your mouth before saying, “Well, I was trying to keep myself from putting out any fires _unnecessarily_ , if you must know.”

“So, you trust me not to set your son on fire – that’s well comforting.”

“You’re awfully stroppy this morning,” Emily laughs, pushing off her perch and heading towards the kitchen. “Someone not had enough coffee?”

“As a general rule,” you tell her, “I’ve _never_ had enough caffeine. But, in particular, you can assume that by nine in the morning I’ve definitely not had my fill.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Emily says over her shoulder. She stops at the sink before turning back to you. “What’s all this? Not in a mood for porridge, was he?”

Your head shakes at the mention of it, and you make a sound of disgust. “Em, that stuff shouldn’t be consumed by the human population at large, let alone small children.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not that bad!”

“Have you even tried it? It’s _horrible!_ Completely inedible, I assure you.”

Emily just laughs and moves towards the cupboard. “I’ll fix him something else. He’s got to have more than a bottle, you know.”

“I don’t know – seems pretty content to me,” you argue, looking down to Lewis who’s gone from drinking the contents of his bottle to just chewing the rubber tip, more consumed now with the game he’s started with your magazine. “A little dairy cocktail, some fine reading and mild discussion on our preferences of curated modern art – not a bad morning eh, Lewis?”

“It’s lovely.” She’s stopped moving about the kitchen, you realise, when you look up to see Emily leant against the table watching you. “It sounds lovely,” she says, correcting the sentiment with a shy smile that tickles the pit of your stomach.

**

Rose attends a week-long conference in Birmingham and, as a result, Lewis stays on with you and Emily for close to a fortnight. It happens mostly by accident, your new ritual, but on the fourth morning that Emily finds you on the sofa with Lewis, she makes a suggestion.

“It’s actually the best time for me to write,” she says. And then [although she’s gotten better about it] she can’t help but append, “If you don’t mind waking up with him?”

The pattern is actually sort of relaxing – a solid two hours every morning where you can focus on something other than your unemployment. Emily stays tucked away in the bedroom. And Lewis is sort of amusing, his face often contorting like some kind of cartoon character as he tries to form words. The two of you manage to avoid any further disastrous run-ins with breakfast, and usually end up crawling around the sitting room carpets. Sometimes he wants books. Sometimes he can’t be kept still. Always, he laughs. And it’s a rather lovely sound that fills up the flat.

The morning after he’s gone back to Rose, you’re sat with Emily midmorning at the kitchen table, working separately and silently. She’s revising, ploughing through her dissertation’s final draft. You’re wrapping up some freelance work, but have glazed over in thought, staring blankly at the cupboards.

Emily’s foot nudges your knee from beneath the table, and when you find her eyes, the smile she’s wearing is reflected in them.

“What’re you thinking about over there?”

“Huh? Nothing – it’s nothing.” You look back to your computer, click around aimlessly.

“You look sort of, I don’t know, sullen or something.”

“What? No, I’m not.” You chance a look at Emily, over the screen of your laptop, who merely arches an eyebrow. “I’m not _sullen_. It’s just, you know, it’s quiet.”

“Yeah,” Emily grins, pressing her lips together as she watches you, and then sips her tea. “Yeah, it is.”

Flustered from that knowing look she's throwing your way, you say, “Well, we should get out for the day – see the sights.”

She laughs a bit. “See the sights?”

“Yeah, let’s take a walk, or pop over to Borough Market and eat until we fall over.”

You reach your hand across the table, which Emily takes with a sigh. “I thought you had work to finish.”

“Fuck it – I’ll finish tonight with a glass of wine when I’m more relaxed. I can’t fucking focus on shit right now.”

You tug a bit at your joined hands, but it’s an unnecessary prompt since Emily’s already up and moving towards you. When she settles on your lap, her head rests on your shoulder.

“I love you, you know.” Emily speaks into your neck as your arms wrap loosely around her.

“Because I’m attempting to ply you with sweets?”

Her laughter is felt in short puffs of air against your skin. “Because you’re a sentimental sop even when you’re too stubborn to admit it.”

“Yeah, well, I love you too,” you sigh, as if almost resigned.  

Emily’s head pops up so you can see her face. “Because I’m so cute?”

You laugh, kissing the inside of both her arms, near her elbows where they’re wrapped loosely around your neck. “That, _and_ because even when you’re insulting me, I can’t help but swoon like a sodding imbecile.”

She leans forward, laughing lightly, and kisses you. Her hands thread through your hair and settle on your face just as she pulls away, resting her forehead on your own. “Well, you’re _my_ sodding imbecile, and I wouldn’t trade you for all the tea in China.”

Your lips find hers again, so close it takes hardly any movement at all. “No?”

Emily shakes her head and kisses you again.

“How about for all the cake in Borough Market?” you ask, just before kissing her chin.

She pinches her lips together and closes one eye in what appears to be serious consideration.

Your jaw drops dramatically as you watch her. “Oh my _god!_ ”

“What?” Emily laughs, her eyes now impossibly wide. “It’s _really_ good cake!”

“You’re fucking unbelievable.”

Her grin turns almost devilish, a seductive arch shaping her left eyebrow that makes you want to shift in your seat.

And then she says, “Well, what’ve you got that’s better than cake?”

It’s the last coherent thing said between you. For hours.

**

In a park, on the first, real autumnal day in London – air chilled to a crisp, everyone in jumpers and hats – Emily’s laid out on a blanket, her head in your lap. Lewis fell asleep on the walk, wrapped up in blankets and snuggled in his pram. You’re leant back, resting your weight on your hands while Emily reads.

The sounds circulating around you are calming, reminiscent of a familiar place now far-removed. If you close your eyes, it could be Brooklyn. It could be Prospect Park on a chilly Saturday where the hipsters would turn out in droves, clinging to the last rays of summer sun.

That life essentially ended completely, stopped pumping like a heartbeat. Returning to Emily, it’s as if she cracked open your chest, resuscitated that heart, and gave it new life. You can’t imagine _not_ being with her, but it’s often just as hard to grasp the concept that you are.

How it is you found her again.

How it is you’re actually here.

How it is she asked you back.

How it is you lost her at all.

Emily shifts, her head moving against your lap until she’s looking up at you. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Your voice wavers unexpectedly, and you clear your throat.

“You alright?” Emily sits up slowly, tossing her book onto the blanket.

“Yeah, fine.”

She smiles, snuggles in closer when a cool breeze picks up. She sits facing you, her legs bent at the knees and arm resting on your thighs. “Don’t feel like talking about it then?”

“Do you ever think about how we – well, how it is we’ve ended up here? Together, I mean.”

“Only every day.” Her smile is so reassuring you almost drop the topic entirely, satisfied to just sit there and look at her. 

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “Me too.”

Emily shudders, and you wrap an arm around her legs where they rest against your side. “Thinking about anything in particular?”

“I guess I just wonder what would have happened – if you’d ever have left Rose, had she not,” you pause, bite at your lip and look down to Emily’s hand where her thumb fans out against your jeans. “Things sort of fell apart when she did that, but had that never happened – I don’t know, I just wonder.”

Emily’s voice is so calm, so certain when she says your name. “Naomi, you should know that I betrayed what I had with Rose the second you walked into that coffee shop – the absolute _instant_ I saw you again, I knew.”

“You knew what?” you ask quietly, not looking up until Emily raises her hand and, with two fingers, lifts your chin.

“I knew that no matter what, I wouldn’t be able to let you walk away again.”

You find your smile, and Emily lets her hand fall so that you can take it, threading your fingers with hers.

“And that was a horrible position to be in – feeling this kind of impending betrayal, and knowing I wouldn’t do anything to stop it. I felt like an awful person for a long while, you know?”

You nod, your smile slipping, and Emily sighs. “But then, I never did feel exactly like myself with her, with Rose. It’s almost like becoming this version of yourself that isn’t totally unrecognisable, but not really a true representation either. And it was like that with her, from the very start. By the time we were living together and planning a family, I guess I’d grown accustomed to it. Figured it was just some new, adult version of me or something, you know?”

“And did you ever stop feeling the guilt over it? Knowing you’d eventually betray that life you created with her?”

Emily smiles, squeezes your fingers. “Obviously.” She says it with a lilt that flutters behind your chest walls, and you're immediately tempted to snog her right then and there for all of Hampstead Heath to enjoy.

Instead, you take a deep breath and ask, “How?”

Emily shrugs, runs a hand through her hair, which has blown across her face in the breeze. “At some point I just realised, it was pointless -- placing blame or harbouring guilt."

She pauses to look at you, _really_ look at you, and in her gaze you see a spark of something you've always associated with Emily, even from the very start. "I’ve never felt more right, or more certain, about any one person in my entire life," she says.

Your stomach flutters then, hearing Emily confirm what you've always known.

"And, if we’re guilty of anything," Emily continues, "it’s just me being me and you … being _you_.”

“That simple, ey?”

“It’s not though,” she says, her face suddenly very grave. “For a long time, I thought it was that simple. You and me, together 'til the end: simple. Indisputable, you know? When I acted out on some foolish ideology of family, it was based, in part, on the notion that it didn't matter. It didn't matter that we didn't agree. You were you, and I was me, and that was it, you know? I thought we could bash each other about, cut each other loose, and it wouldn't matter. Because we'd figure it out and find our way back. But, that's not the way things work, is it?" It's now Emily who bows her head.

"It sort of is, though, isn't it? I mean, look at us, Ems."

Her face almost breaks then, along with her voice. "But, I lost you for so long, Naomi."

“You got me back.” Your hand cups her face just as a waver you now expect tremors your voice. And Emily looks up, her own eyes already glistening.

"I try not to question it because it doesn't matter  _how_   I got a second chance at all this, just that I did," she says through a sniffle. "But, I'll never understand how it's possible. How it is that you found me in a random shop, in the middle of this massive city, after all that time."

You shrug, blinking a bit as tears prick the corners of your eyes. "It was sort of like finding you the very first time – big, brown eyes, studiously folded hands atop your desk, that ridiculous fringe that you'd keep for years." Emily laughs through her tears, scoots closer to lay her head on your chest and wraps her arms tightly around your middle. "I just walked in," you say, pulling her in tightly, "and there you were."

 


End file.
